First touch in iPhone, then motion sensor in Kinect: how 4 years old and grandma can both access computer at ease

A lot of computer enthusiasts share the same dream as I have, that one day computer will become so easy to use and so intuitive that even a 4 year old or a grandma can use without much learning.  The dream was starting to materialize when Xerox created graphic user interface, and then later being popularized by Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows.  Then stuck with mouse and windows for many years, without much improvement on user interface experience. 

Then 6 years ago we started to have touch interface, and once popularized by Apple's iPhone.  Suddenly, kids can learn stroking letters on iPad while grandma use the exact same iPad to play mahjong.

Today me and my relative experienced Microsoft Kinect, and I instantly realize that this is going to be another major leap in user interface and experience.  As a 1.0 technology, there's still a lot of room for improvement, but seeing how our family and relatives, with totally 9 persons from age between 4 year old to ... well, grandama, get together playing on the same game, and that anyone can just jump in the center and instantly start participating the game in progress, I can see this interface can be used to do much more than just playing virtual bowling and hip hop dancing. 

Microsoft has a track record of release their technology into API so that others can write software on.  And if Microsoft can turn Kinect technology into easy to use library like XNA or something like Microsoft Motion Framework X.X, then we will soon seeing Powerpoint presentation started by waving a hand, 3D landscape visualization interface by moving hands in the air, or choreographer collaborate on dance through Internet. 

In good old days, technology tends to flow from military and academic  use to consumer world.  Now it's the other way round.  Consumer electronic like iPhone, iPad and Kinect popularize new interface, while the enterprise or even military world tries to catch up.

I am looking forward to see how our next generation interface with computer and information.